Woman caught planting bomb at school in Iraq

A GUARD caught a woman planting a bomb next to a primary school as two blasts killed four Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq on Monday.

The woman was trying to plant a bomb next to the wall of a school in Madain, south of Baghdad, but was discovered by one of the school's guards, who turned her over to the army with the help of a second guard, an interior ministry official said.

The attempted bombing came a day after a suicide bombers attacked a primary school and a nearby police station in northern Iraq, killing 18 people, including 10 children.

A total of 36 people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Sunday.

North of the capital, two roadside bombs killed four Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters and wounded five on Monday.

The Sahwa, who joined forces with the United States from late 2006 and helped bring about a sharp reduction in violence in Iraq, are frequently targeted by Sunni militants, who consider them to be traitors.

Violence in Iraq has reached a level unseen since 2008, amid persistent fears of a relapse into the kind of intense Sunni-Shiite bloodshed that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

The latest violence takes this month's death toll to more than 170, and more than 4,850 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.